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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place for encounters with art and each other. As an internationally renowned exhibition centre, it offers space for major exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists.

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The Gropius Bau is closed on Tuesdays.

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Gropius Bau 2025

Exhibitions & Projects

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Our newsletters keep you updated on current and upcoming exhibitions and events. Learn more about our kids programme and plan your next visit.

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Our 2026 programme preview is now online! We look forward to exhibitions by Marina Abramović, Peter Hujar, Christoph Schlingensief, Gabriele St&ouml;tzer and many other artists who cast an uncompromising gaze on society.

Programme 2026

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Advance sales are now live: tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are now available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Musikfest Berlin

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Performers and life-sized dolls – living creatures and inanimate objects – come together in Gisèle Vienne’s and Étienne Bideau-Rey’s dance-theatre performance. The choreography in slow motion – composed in dialogue with original music by Peter Rehberg – is diffracting time and thus enabling usually unseen parts of experiences to be seen.

Showroomdummies #4

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In Thorsten Lensing’s new play, Ursina Lardi, Karin Neuh&auml;user, Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung and drummer Willi Kellers play characters careening their way from one disaster to the next. What defines them is an absurd blend of brutality and tenderness, anarchy and metaphysical curiosity, existential pain and zest for life.

Tanzende Idioten

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As an international co-production, artists Nina Laisné and François Chaignaud and singer Nadia Larcher have developed a performance that is carried by music, singing and dance at once. In Último helecho, European Baroque meets South American folklore and mythology.

Último helecho

More Berliner Festspiele

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Performances and More – Free Admission

Sp&auml;tschicht x Leila Hekmat

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The Practice – What Moves Artists

The Practice – What Moves Artists&nbsp;is a book series by Gropius Bau that invites artists to showcase a practice that they pursue, that has influenced them or that has been with them for a long time. In the second volume of the series, artist, performer and author Vaginal Davis looks back on the saucy underground scenes of Los Angeles and Berlin together with former bandmates.&nbsp;On Dangerous Ground recounts past gigs, spectacular live performances and well-kept secrets.

Vaginal Davis: On Dangerous Ground

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Widely regarded as one of the most original and influential artists of the 20th century, Diane Arbus’ bold black-and-white photographs demolish aesthetic conventions and upend all certainties. With&nbsp;Diane Arbus: Konstellationen, Gropius Bau presents the most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date.

Diane Arbus: Konstellationen

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Ligia Lewis is a central figure in redefining performance within the context of the visual arts. Her solo exhibition&nbsp;I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR… at Gropius Bau&nbsp;brings&nbsp;together new and existing works that explore themes of race, gender, violence and resistance.

Ligia Lewis:I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR...

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With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an&nbsp;admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities.

BAUBAU:A&nbsp;Play Space for Kids

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What is and has been the role of play in public space? Gabriela Burkhalter’s&nbsp;Playing in the City&nbsp;presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today. The free presentation is open to all and can be seen in two rooms next to BAUBAU’s entrance.

Playing in the City:A Short History from 1900 to the Present

Currently at Gropius Bau

Widely regarded as one of the most original and influential artists of the 20th century, Diane Arbus’ bold black-and-white photographs demolish aesthetic conventions and upend all certainties. With Diane Arbus: Konstellationen, Gropius Bau presents the most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date. Featuring 454 prints, many of them shown here for the first time, Konstellationen offers new perspectives on Arbus’ iconic images and the wide range of her portraiture.

Ligia Lewis is a central figure in redefining performance within the context of the visual arts. In her multifaceted practice, she combines performance, live installation and film. From autumn 2025, Gropius Bau presents I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR…, the artist and choreographer’s most comprehensive solo exhibition to date. It brings together new and existing works that explore themes of race, gender, violence and resistance.

Ligia Lewis: I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR…

Current Exhibitions

With Arthur Chruszcz, Monique Fei, Forecast (Hussein Chalayan, Bethan Hughes, Kihako Narisawa, James Richards and Hochschule f&uuml;r Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin), James Main, Roman Ole, Shade Théret

For the December edition of our event series Sp&auml;tschicht, we invite you to join us and artist Leila Hekmat for a live programme featuring free performances, an installation, a screening and a talk.

We are looking forward to welcoming you back in mid-March with the reopening of our play space, <a href="${link:{uuid:{df42e57d-a14a-4b44-a5e4-9d3e7dcab5a6},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/baubau}}}">BAUBAU</a> (on 22 March), and two exhibitions, <a href="${link:{uuid:{55d64239-53fe-4b12-8567-a63191c6cae4},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/vaginal-davis}}}">Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt</a> (from 21 March) and <a href="${link:{uuid:{9618c701-bd05-432e-b688-5943e1f7fc57},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/yoko-ono}}}">YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND</a> (from 11 April). For details on opening hours and tickets, please visit our <a href="${link:{uuid:{62c3018b-bb40-46ce-8019-646ec5cd2e4a},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/besuch/informationen}}}">Information &amp; Tickets</a> page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

See you in March!

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A Vibrant Place for Enganging with Art and Each Other

Located in the centre of Berlin, Gropius Bau is an internationally renowned institution that stages large-scale exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists. Its diverse events focus on exchange and discussion, bringing together local and global perspectives.

About Gropius Bau

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Playing, laughing, making noise, letting off steam, doing nothing – all in an exhibition venue! With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an&nbsp;admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities.

BAUBAU

Spielen in der Stadt

What has been the role of play in public space, both historically and in the present? Complementing BAUBAU, our free play space for kids, Gabriela Burkhalter’s&nbsp;Playing in the City&nbsp;presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today. The free presentation is open to all and can be seen in two rooms next to the play space’s entrance.

Playing in the City

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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place to encounter art and each other. The internationally renowned institution stages large-scale exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists.

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Festivals & Programme Series

In the past two decades, a type of photography has established itself that explicitly turns away from the long time prevailing principles of documentary photography, photojournalism, strait and street photography. The photographer sets an emotionally charged gaze against objectivity and objective visualization based strategies. It is about a professional, purposeful look that is at the same time fascinating and investigative. This type of photography is often playful and implements the entire medium in order to stimulate an emotional reaction. The photographer aims to be touching and poignant. The artists included in the exhibition often tell stories through photo series and work often with essayistic elements. Nevertheless, the approach is very calculated. Within the same time in film and television particular formats have been founded: docu-dramas, reality shows and docu-soap established approaches to dealing with the past and present - in ways that were not always altogether congenial. These genres, through clearness and attention to atmosphere, create scenes that integrate the historic fabric and confront the specific documentary material. The artists, which were chosen by the partner cities of this exhibition project, approach their photography and film mediums in a similar way. They stage, intensify and use theatrical effects. The subject of their interests and the stories that are connected to those themes will be presented in such a way that evokes a strong reaction; a reaction that is also related to the artist’s political ideals. One could argue that they were borrowed from the musical concept of the “Attack”. All of the chosen works concentrate on an occupation with existence and existential questions.
Andreas Mühe, for example, devotes himself to his complex photo series “Obersalzberg” (2011-2013) which is based on the photographic work by Walter Frentz, the camera man of Leni Riefenstahl, who was a member of Adolf Hitler’s closest circle. Through the restaging of these images, Mühe deconstructed the propagandistic moment and attempted to explore the fascination that these images inspire – then as well as now.
The Canadian artist Vera Frenkel created “The Blue Train” (2012), a complex photo and video installation made from large screens and tablet computers that tells the story of a young woman (her mother), who in 1939 had to flee from the once Czech Republic over many borders (as a Jew, German territory was too dangerous to travel through) to London. On the one hand there is a large scale simultaneous video installation that shows the travel movements from pre- and post-war periods in Europe and the memories attached to these images. Exemplary motifs slide in and over one another, repeat themselves, disappear and reappear. On the other hand, Vera Frenkel creates intimate trains of thought, everyday observations and typical everyday events that are embedded in the universal context of the journey by train. This is done in the form of a “portable narrative” accessed over a large number of mobile devices that are available individually.
Pablo Zuleta Zahr, in “Puppies in Torture Chambers,” accompanies a school class to a once secret detention center of the Chilean Junta and photographs the school children’s disinterest, curiosity, excitement, and shock using snap shot photography style with long exposure times and blurred black and white imagery.
The exhibition will deal with culture, memory and history and how personal concerns on the one hand and factuality of history and The Real on the other, develop sentiment (emotion and empathy), touch, and changing effects. In fashion and advertisement photography the concept of mood-photography has been introduced. Something similar happens here in the study of social problems and scanned culture. It is in the photographer’s crucial interest, to move or shake the viewer. An important moment, that is noticeable in all of the gathered art works, is the serious artistic process and the work’s existential character.
Participating artists 
 (as of July 2014) 
 Andreas Mühe (Germany, Karl-Marx-Stadt, lives in Berlin), 
 Vera Frenkel (Slovakia, Bratislava, lives in Kanada, Toronto), 
 Pablo Zuleta-Zahr (Chile, Vina del Mar, lives in Berlin), 
 Erwin Olaf (Netherlands, Hilversum, lives in Amsterdam), 
 Aura Rosenberg (USA, New York, lives in New York and Berlin), 
 Nan Goldin (USA, Washington D.C., lives in Paris and Berlin), 
 Broomberg &amp; Chanarin (Southafrica, Johannesburg/GB, London, lives in London), 
 Nasan Tur (Germany, Offenbach, lives in Berlin and Rome), 
 Stephanie Kloss (Germany, Karlsruhe, lives in Berlin), 
 Antoine d’Agata (France, Marseille), 
 Klaus Mettig (Germany, Brandenburg, lives in Düsseldorf), 
 Anna Charlotte Schmid (Germany, Essen, lives in Berlin), 
 Marko Lipuš (Austria, Eisenkappel, lives in Vienna), 
 Attila Floszmann (Hungary, Budapest), 
 Tomáš Šoltýs (Slovakia, Prešov, lives in Austria, Vienna) 
 Trevor Paglen (USA, Maryland, lives in New York)

How are historical events, cultural characteristics and changes in social conditions portrayed by today’s artists and photographers who use the mediums of photography and video? How is the distance between then and now, between current living conditions and the object of interest photographically constructed and what “reality” is being presented? How is memory formulated and how does this counteract the act of forgetting?

MemoryLab: Die Wiederkehr des Sentimentalen

MemoryLab: The Sentimental Turn

Ausstellungen

Exhibitions 2014

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Programm

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Upcoming

The Berliner Festspiele organise a range of festivals and art exhibitions, concerts, dance and theatre performances, readings, lectures, debates and much more throughout the year. These events are presented at a range of locations across Berlin but are concentrated primarily at their own two venues: the Gropius Bau and the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

Berliner Festspiele

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furtherInformation

You can listen to some of our events this year digitally in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library after the live concerts.&nbsp;In addition, On Demand offers from past years are available.

Musikfest Berlin in the Media Library

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The international Jazzfest Research Lab&nbsp;welcomes academics and students to take a critical look at the festival’s archive, its programmes, creators, musicians and – last but not least – its myths. In two seminars during the summer semester of 2024, students from the Berlin University of the Arts and the University of Hildesheim have explored the festival’s history from various perspectives. In this film, the participants give a first look at how they dealt with their research subject.

Introducing: Jazzfest Research Lab

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To mark its 60th anniversary, Jazzfest Berlin is celebrating the cultural diversity of the neighbouring district of Moabit in collaboration with around 35 official partners and initiatives and with over 350 participants of all ages.&nbsp;In June 2024, interviews were conducted with 20 partners who presented their perspectives, wishes and ideas for the Jazzfest Community Lab Moabit. You can get a first impression with this film.

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Curated by&nbsp;Meron Mendel and Saba-Nur Cheema&nbsp;

From 13 to 16 June 2024, the interdisciplinary themed days “Reflexes &amp; Reflections” on the Israel-Palestine conflict and its consequences for society in Germany took place at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. You can now find video and audio recordings of the discourse events in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library!

Reflexes &amp; Reflections. 7 October, the war in Gaza and the debate in Germany

In the Media Library

Musikfest Berlin will take place from 28&nbsp;August to 23&nbsp;September 2026 in co-operation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation and marks the 75th&nbsp;anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele. Tickets are already available now for ten selected concert highlights at the Philharmonie Berlin. These guest concerts include some of the world’s best symphony orchestras and choirs from Finland, Spain, England, South Africa, the USA, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The complete festival programme will be announced on 21&nbsp;April 2026.

Musikfest Berlin 2026: Tickets for First Concert Highlights Available Now!

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The 10 Remarkable Productions 2024

On 26 January, the Theatertreffen’s jury of critics announced their selection of 10 remarkable productions for the 2024 Theatertreffen at a press conference. Our congratulations go to the nominated production teams and all participants! The programme will be published on 5 April.

Theatertreffen 2024

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The massacre, hostage-taking and rocket attacks by Hamas have shaken us deeply. The grue-some attack on Israel on 7&nbsp;October left us stunned and initially lost for words.

The Berliner Festspiele on Current Events in Israel, Gaza and Germany

With this letter of intent, we, the signing cultural organizations, express our intention to welcome, host and stage Ukrainian theatre artists in our venues, to make Ukrainian dramatic work visible to the European community.

Support of the Ukrainian Cultural Scene

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Thorsten Lensing

Tanzende Idioten

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Tanzende Idioten

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As an international co-production, artists Nina Laisné and François Chaignaud and singer Nadia Larcher have developed a performance that is carried by music, singing and dance at once. In “Último helecho”, European Baroque meets South American folklore and mythology.

Último helecho

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Advance sales are now live: tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th&nbsp;anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are now available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

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A dance collage by John Neumeier for the Federal Youth Ballet, which explores aspects of German expressive dance with music, texts and songs, and commemorates the victims of Nazi rule.

Die Unsichtbaren

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<h3>Theatertreffen</h3><h4>2 to 20 May 2024</h4>The 10&nbsp;remarkable productions, selected by a jury of critics, were announced in a press conference on 26&nbsp;January 2024, 11:00. The programme will be published on 5&nbsp;April, advance ticket sales will start on 19&nbsp;April at 14:00